Tom Roetman

[vault3rb0y]

I dont feel that he's comfortable with his free take off yet (... let me explain).

Right off the ground he breaks his trail leg. Thats a sign of "balling up" and is often associated with a hesitance off the ground.

His hips prematurely move toward the chord of the pole, he hasnt even begun to swing. This sometimes is associated with a hesitance to attack the take off.

His bottom arm pulls once the swing begins. again it is a "balling up" thing and expresses a hesitance to be tall and long.


Beyond this hesitance, he tries to invert with his arms and not his core muscles (aka rowing). He is on the right track IMHO, but getting comfortable with a free take off and pressing upwards... not so much forwards, and staying behind the pole need to be comfortable and automatic before his swing is developed fully. It will make things a world easier IMO.

[KirkB]

3P0 has commented quite well on the vault vid, so I won't elaborate, other than to say that I think it's going to take quite a bit of practice on the highbar to get the swing down pat before good results can be expected on the pole. It doesn't happen overnight - it takes weeks ... and maybe even months to get it right.

Get it to be more vigorous! Especially the 'downswing' (I'm sure Kirk will kindly elaborate).

The drill could be done with the trail leg extended above the bar (as Tom demonstrates), or tucking both legs under the bar. I think it would feel less awkward for Tom to tuck both legs under the bar ... and to NOT pause in that position, but to come right back down and do another one ... and so on. The problem with pausing at the top of the rep is that he focuses too much on where his body is at that point, whereas the drill is really to practice the DOWNSWING ... and that's all. So it doesn't matter much how he ends up ... tucked or not ... that's not the important part of the drill.

If you ask Tom to do say 10 reps as fast as he can (and maybe actually time him), then he will start figuring out how to do them quicker ... without swinging ... and without pausing at the top of the rep. Keep track of how long 10 reps takes, and try to improve day-by-day. This will give him some incentive to improve ... and make it more fun. But most importantly, the motions your body discovers when you're trying to do these quickly are the right motions ... keeping the trail leg long and the lead knee up.

I'm wondering if it might be worth trying something... KB, do you remember your suggestion to me/6P of trying this drill with a pool noodle as a 'target'? I'm going to try this with an athlete soon myself. Where exactly should it be put?

The idea is to give the vaulter something to aim at when he's swinging his trail leg. You want him to have a fully extended trail leg when he passes the chord. On the highbar, that's directly under the bar. So as the coach, you would hold the pool noodle down there where he'd have to reach with his leg to kick it. Hold it just a tad forwards from directly below the bar. The feeling of kicking it will also give him "a sense of accomplishment" and the positive bio-feedback that he's doing it properly. As his technique gets better and better, the pool noodle becomes less and less important, since he no longer needs something to aim for to FEEL that he's swinging his trail leg properly.

Later, I'll give you some additional advice on how to use the pool noodle. It's something that Pat Licari started doing with his vaulters a few years ago at UW after we discussed my Bryde Bend technique. It's just a little too technical for Tom right now.

Kirk

[Run2Niels]

If you ask Tom to do say 10 reps as fast as he can (and maybe actually time him), then he will start figuring out how to do them quicker ... without swinging ... and without pausing at the top of the rep. Keep track of how long 10 reps takes, and try to improve day-by-day. This will give him some incentive to improve ... and make it more fun. But most importantly, the motions your body discovers when you're trying to do these quickly are the right motions ... keeping the trail leg long and the lead knee up.

We're going to try this today!

And of course nobody is going to expect immediate results on the pole. Uh, well, maybe just a little bit result is hoped for...it's ten days till the National Championships with 5 boys between 3.80 and 4.20 aiming for gold. Ofcourse long term planning is important. Next year he is still eligible for the under-17 category and Christian Tamminga holds the national record in that age-group.
I'm falling into the pitfall of result-thinking...it should be process-thinking. Technique! technique! technique!

3po, thanks for your comment. He sure needs to make more jumps to be consistent and comfortable. Ít's finally better weather in the rainy Netherlands!
What means IMHO?

[vault3rb0y]

In My Humble Opinion. It pretty much gives me the right to say what i think without backing it up completely

[Run2Niels]

[Run2Niels]

new small personal record => 3.95meters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eic0vmXTYkY

He's getting comfortable running and planting the 4.60 pole during meets (12 step runup). On shorter runs he sometimes keeps his left knee up en his trail leg long during the swing.

I like to see some comments on his last three jumps om 4.05. It looks to me he (weighing 63 kg) will make the height using a stiffer pole (4.60m/140lbs) and a better swing. Am I correct?

[master]

IMHO, he will achieve major improvements in height when he learns to more completely finish his swing. His feet should at least get back to his top hand. They really should go beyond his top hand and from there the hips thrust to the pole as the shoulders are driven down. Reaching that position puts the body in-line with the return-force of the straightening pole.

Finishing the swing will happen when the earlier parts of the swing are improved.

- master

[Run2Niels]

Please look at this video. It's a six step runup with a 4.30/140 pole. Special attention for keeping the trail leg long and the lead knee up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt6WztcydG8

IMHO ( ) the second jump is the best. Please comment...

[VaultPurple]

Trail leg is really looking long, but from the video it is hard to tell if he is just keeping it long and using his abs or hips to swing it forward or if he is kicking the leg. The whip from a kick will get him into the pit a lot faster and help him extend off the top of the pole, where just using his abs the whole time will not have much power. He still also has a little problem of getting stuck when trying to invert where he pushes both arms out front and pushes body away from pole. He just needs to swing through and stay tight to the pole.


ps.. I looked at some of your other videos and saw that he long jumped from his right foot. If he can jump significantly farther with his right foot then his left, then he would be better off in the long run becoming a left handed vaulter. A strong jump at take off is one of the most important parts of the vault.

[master]

IMHO ( ) the second jump is the best. Please comment...

I agree. He definitely got his feet back much nicer (covering his top hand). Seeing the end of the vault where he was turned (around the pole) indicates something was wrong in the plant and take off. Maybe the top hand at the plant was a little to the right or his take off was little right.

Focusing back on the "covering" stage, her is where dropping his shoulders and thrusting his hips to the pole would happen, but didn't on this jump. He might have been uncomfortable doing that since if the body is turning in an unusual manner a vaulter becomes worried about safety. However, look at his head position. His head starts out OK but as he rotates his chin is almost touching his chest. Have him try to keep his head in a neutral position; the position the head is in when a person is standing up straight and looking straight ahead. You can feel why a vaulter tends to do what he did in this vault by just putting your hands in the position they would be in at this point in the vault. Do this when you are standing tall and looking straight ahead and you will feel an natural tendency to dip your head and look at your hands. When that happens, force your body to get into that tall position again and feel what you have to do to your body to get there. You have to pull your shoulders back which puts your chest out again and your hips go forward also. That is the "feel" you want to try for.

I hope that makes some sense. I want to also say how impressed I am with the quality of his high plant and early take off. Wish I could do it that well.

- master

[vault3rb0y]

His take off really is a thing of beauty on those short runs. Very, very impressive and signs of great things from him.

I agree that he must fix the lower part of his swing. I would suggest having him see these videos (if he has not already) and stressing a split position between his drive knee and trail leg. Thats a simple thing to think about doing, to separate your drive knee and trail leg and much as possible, but it should finish his take off more fully and improve his take off power/angle, and so keep his trail leg straighter and give it more room to swing. Essentially i see his take off looking good but not being finished before his hips move and he swings. Part of this also has to do with his bottom arm which seems to be pulling once he's off the ground.

A possible way to illustrate this would be to put him on the rings and have him lightly swing his body back and forth. Have him try to swing to inversion when his hips are not at vertical, but when they are in front of his body. Its a lot harder than swinging when your hips are still underneath you. Then have him recognize that a strong split position makes swinging to inversion a lot easier as well. Thinking about all this on the rings makes it 10times easier to relate on the runway.

He definitely also has too much pressure on his bottom hand when he swings. Have him try to press his bottom hand to the left (or right) standard when he swings. Once he stops pulling with his bottom arm to swing, and keeps his hips from moving too early, he will crush some poles and find inversion a lot simpler.

[Run2Niels]

Thank you again for all the comments. I want to explain a bit further. He is going to train this summer for 6 weeks and after that he will have 5 meets in 6 weeks time.
He has 1 or 2 polevaulting moments in a week. Besides planting exercises in the sandpit and general exercises on the grass and the track, he has started with the short run-up again. Once he does everything right , he will go and practice this on an 8 step run-up. Once this is right, he will go to 10 step run-up and after that to a full 12-step run-up again.
The goal is to be able to implement the good technique on his full runup before the first meet at the end of august and jump over higher bars. He probably need to have stiffer poles, so he will be practicing the runup on the track with heavy poles (he used 4.60m/140lbs in his last meet and now practice his runups with 150lbs and 155lbs).

My interpretation of your comments:
- He needs to finish his take-off. His left leg needs to swing more back, which causes the stretch reflex on his abs, hipflexors and quadriceps. This will create a faster downswing and then a faster inversion. => In my opinion this will happen when he has a longer and consequently faster runup. Ofcourse I will let him do the highbar exercises mentioned earlier to give him the feel of a fast swing to inversion.
-He needs to finish his inversion. Straighten his hips even more, by bringing the head in a neutral position when the hips are straightening. => We're going to try this. Once he is comfortable with a better take-off and the faster swing.

While I agree with the above 2 comments, I'm confused about the role of the bottom hand. I have read different opinions of this and I am, as non-experienced polevaulter myself, attracted to the theory of Botcharnikov. He said in his "pole vault manifesto" and his thread "the swing" you need to pull immediately after take-off, because this will speed up the rotation around the top hand.

@vaultpurple: About the right versus left leg jumping I can only say that he has a personla record with left of 6.34 meters and a personal record with right of 6.52meters. He throwed the javelin with his right arm around 45 meters and his left arm is poor with javelin throwing. We keep the left leg jumping for now, but some experimentation in the offseason (october) is always fun! I will let you know the results (video )